


Sand Grains

by q00zan



Category: HEARTBEAT (Video Game)
Genre: Beaches, Comfort, Dialogue, F/F, Melancholy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-19 03:01:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20650118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/q00zan/pseuds/q00zan
Summary: Eve and Avi spend some time together on the beach, thinking.





	Sand Grains

**Author's Note:**

> Written for HEARTBEAT Discord's Summer Event Vol. 2 in August-September 2019, the topic of which was a beach episode.  
It's a little weird, but maybe you'll understand what's going on in this one. Fairly small fic, fragmented, bits of something.  
To be honest, it's been very difficult to write again.  
Hope you enjoy! And thank you.

The evening was a great pleasure. All was quiet on the beach, except the salty sea tides crashing down on the wet sand, then slithering back with a playful sizzle. A creak of a palm, perhaps, broke the loop at times.

Then, soft steps on the sand, boots sinking in thousands of dry grains.

“So… does this count as getting stranded?”

“To others, maybe. Not to us. I mean, we could pretend we’re stranded. Would have to go back into the water and deal with having to dry everything, and stuff…”

Eve set a generous heap of dry bush branches and bark down on the sand and arranged it in a neat way. Avisa looked at it for a while, thinking about something else, but then decided to help. In the end, she took over the process, setting the campfire up on her own, in some particular fashion, while Eve sat back and watched. When Avi was done, Staccato reached for something in the shadows.

“That would also take away all the convenient things we got. Get back from it a bit, I’ll light it,” she said, holding a core piece in her hand. An oddly shaped one, almost as if it was ready to fall apart any second then. Fiery.

“Is it alright to use it like that?” Avi asked sheepishly, rubbing her hands together as she shuffled back a bit on the sand.

Eve looked at her, for a brief moment, before concentrating on the core in her hand. A bright flame was conjured, it enveloped her palm, and then she let it slip onto the fire. It shone bright, trying to burn all of the wood beneath it to ashes, so the conjurer spent a little while soothing it.

“Io suggested it once when we all hung out for a barbecue. Apparently, she doesn’t even feel anything if I use it. Weird, right?” Eve explained, then looked Avi right in the eye. Alocer saw the magical flame dance in the conjurer’s eyes.

“I see, I see, I see. Hm. That’s funny. I wonder. You could use a piece of my core as a lamp, right? That’s quite something,” the mogwai said, chuckling to herself, quite proud of her own idea.

“Not bad, actually. Not bad.”

“You do have Klein already, though… and lamps. Usual lamps. Traditional, classic...”

“Conventional, right. Well. Klein’s busy nowadays, too.” Eve concluded.

Avi looked down at the flames. The fire was warm, welcoming, and useful. Gathered around it, both of them felt safe, even so far away from home, voluntarily stranded on an island. At least they had been there before, on Sporegano. Revisiting it was an interesting idea, although Avi was a bit upset others couldn’t come. Nile and Ark were too busy working with a new associate of theirs that had moved to Sand Bar a month before. They did, however, encourage Avisa to go, when she thought of turning down the invitation from Eve. For the longest while, she barely ever left the Museum.

“So, I take it you’re quite busy-busy yourself nowadays, right? Quite the busy ambassador you are.”

“A bit of this, a bit of that. It’s weird sometimes. A lot of people write to me, I think I even got a fan club or something, or maybe even several of those. Some people say being an ambassador is a blessing, a dream job. That’s cool, I guess. I get sort of upset when they say they want to be me, though. They don’t have to, and, I mean, they must not. I think they must not. They must be who they are,” Eve expressed her thoughts, her voice becoming quieter with each word - she simply murmured the last bit of what she had to tell Avi.

“Oh, I see. Fan clubs! People love people, that happens, don’t worry about it. I know some of clubs like that, the people there are not all that bad,” Avi hurried to say, hoping to ease the topic a little bit.

“What, are you part of mine?” Staccato asked with a little smile on her face. It was a tired one, too.

Avisa felt the tips of her ears itching. They suddenly became warm. She blinked a couple of times, slowly, processing the question, then moved her hands around, trying to illustrate a response.

“Well, I mean, maybe? Ha-ha. Not really. Would that upset you, if say, it was like that?”

“Not really… are you hungry?”

Eve had a bagful of fish at her side. She caught some as soon as they arrived at one of the islands of the Archipelago. The conjurer was an incredibly skilled angler. Avisa guessed that it had to be one of the magical abilities humans could master. Eve was too good at it.

Alocer reached back for her jacket that she had agreed to take off earlier. It was gradually getting colder and colder, the closer the night approached, so she decided it would be fine to put it back on, despite the warm fire nearby. It felt nice.

“I don’t know. Are you?”

“I asked you first.”

Avi hummed, sighed for a bit, shuffling in her spot on the soft sand.

“Alright, yeah!”

What followed was the thorough process of preparing the fish for its last purpose - a fine makeshift supper in the wild - or wilder than usual - surroundings on Sporegano. Eve seemed relaxed, but also tense, shifting from one to another so quickly. She slowly pulls out a knife, but her movements while cleaning the freshly caught blu snappers were sharp, rapid. Finally, she’d slide the fish bits on a couple of sticks - the ones they had weren’t big, really, but the meat was thick enough not to fall apart when skewered. Eve handed one of the prepared sticks to Avi.

“Just fry it. Like this, above the fire.”

“Ah. Very interesting, peculiar. I never thought cooking it like this would be… sufficient.”

“I asked Dawn. She said it’s complete and utter sacrilege, but it gets the job done. The point is getting it burnt, full of smoke, and more edible than not. Right?” Eve explained, then took a look at Avi, genuinely laughing at her own statement.

Alocer laughed along, although she didn’t catch most of what Eve said.

The flames hungered for the treat hanging above it, and gladly reached for the sticks with meat on it, cooking it - erratic, excited. Avi could hear the faint sizzling sound.

And then, there was while of silence between them, interrupted by everything else - including the crackling of fire, hissing of cooked meat and the faintest shuffling of sand in the early night wind. At some point Eve pulled her stick away from the fire and bit right in, no matter how hot it was. It made Avi flinch a little.

“Erm, is it good?” she asked.

“_ Ish fine. Good shtuff, _” Staccato said with a full mouth. “Think I burnt my tongue though.”

“Oh no-no-no… does it hurt a lot? Maybe I could get you some water?” Avi said, almost certainly genuinely worried.

“Nah. That’s alright. You get yours off the flames, it’s gonna burn.”

“Oh, right. Ahem.”

Avi followed Eve’s example then, held the stick in her hands and stared at it for a good while. She wanted to bite right in, but it’d most certainly be too hot. Then again, she didn’t want to seem weak in front of Staccato. She pretended to enjoy the aroma of the meal for a while.

“You changed, after all.”

Silence. It was so quiet that one could hear the most distant sounds. Somewhere far away a coconut fell on head of a tiny oni, stunning the poor little one. Eve felt the same, for a moment, and even Alocer herself, after realizing what she had said.

“I’m sorry, that was, erm, a bit sudden, if I were to say-”

“A lot of things and people changed. It’s alright. Don’t apologize, Avi. Okay?”

“Hm. Alright. I just couldn’t help but notice it. I notice things, sometimes. Sometimes I notice them to-o-o late…” she said, calming down, and bit into the cooked fish on her stick.

Eve rolled her shoulders a bit, and looked around, stretching her neck. She exhaled. The air on the Archipelago was remarkable. The mix of the breeze from the sea, the sound of the wild behind them, the smoke just near them - it was healing.

“I wasn’t sure about it, but I kind of expected it, maybe. What I mean is, you didn’t change, though. I mean, it’s not bad. Not bad at all. It’s actually kind of refreshing. It brings me back. You’ve always been very kind to me and everyone else I knew, and… yeah,” Eve was saying, but slowly lost her train of thought. Somehow, Avi’s eyes were almost shining bright with excitement when the conjurer spoke about her.

“Is that so? I’m glad. I thought you’d be all bummed out because Nile and Ark didn’t come. And Klein. And Nyx? And everyone else. But, you know, I’m here! Not here, though, I’m usually at the Museum, there. You can count on me,” Alocer reassured her friend, believing it’s what she needed. Then took another bite. Her meal was horribly burnt, but still edible. In a way, the conversation made it taste even better.

“Thank you, Avi.”

She couldn’t really put her finger on what was exactly wrong. Or, that is, not wrong, but odd and new about Eve. For Avi was somehow sure of it - nothing could be wrong about Solum’s hero, about Solum’s ambassador. Just had to be some minor inconvenience. Perhaps, Eve just had a hard time adjusting to her new job.

“I asked Nile recently if she had any premonitions about you. She wouldn’t answer. I kind of became too prying about it, and she just told me that we probably don’t need a Cheevo of you, erm, filing paperwork,” Avi said. Her tone became very upset at the end, and she looked Eve in the eyes. “Do you really work so hard, all the time? And no great adventures? Isn’t that bad?”

Staccato held her stick, then pierced the sand nearby with it, letting it stand there like that. She was done with her meal.

“It’s not bad. I do a lot of boring stuff, but also a lot of nice stuff. Exciting stuff? Some is, but it’s not really… well, there are dangers sometimes, and all, but it’s not like back then. I’m kind of thankful, really, at times. That it’s like this now. I help Solum, I help the mogwai. And people, too. It’s really weird, it’s still weird, but I think I could get used to it. I do think about how it used to be, though, very often…”

Eve paused for a while, staring at the fire. Avi stared at her, then, waiting for the rest. She felt that Staccato had more to say.

“I’m not really sure what to make of my future. Maybe it’s so complicated, that’s why even Nile doesn’t know.”

“Do you know what you wanna do?” Avi asked, shuffling a bit closer to the fire - and therefore closer to Eve. It was a bit too hot near the flames, but she could endure it. Staccato noticed that, and looked at Alocer - her face was illuminated by fire, all bright orange. Eve chuckled a bit, covering her mouth with her wrist, then kept talking:

“No.”

“That’s alright. I mean. I know what I might do. The usual. In the museum. So don’t worry about it too much, right?” Avi said, with a hopeful smile.

Eve nodded, slowly, almost shaking her head at first instead. She raised her eyebrows and breathed in deeply.

“That’s gotta be right. Yeah. Thank you, Avi.”

“Um, Eve? Sorry this is a bit out of the blue, but, are we going to sleep here on the beach or something? Are we not going home?”

“I kind of didn’t think about going back until morning.”

“But… won’t we get attacked, sleeping here?” Avi asked, shivering.

“Don’t worry. I’m a strong fighter, apparently. At least, everyone says so,” Eve boasted, smiling a little bit. That made Avi feel a bit better, but she was still uncomfortable.

“What if a crab attacks?”

“Then there will be battle. I’ve fought one before. It had massive claws - so massive they could definitely rip a car apart or something...” Staccato remembered her peculiar adventures in the dreaming realm.

Of course, Eve couldn’t let any of that happen. She, in fact, didn’t care if they really had to come back home earlier than she had planned. There on the island, for some odd reason, she was free from worrying about anything. Accompanied by Avi, she felt even more as if time had stopped a while, long while ago.

They cleaned up the remains of the fire and were getting ready to leave. The sky was fascinating there. It was beautiful in most places across Piecewood, but nothing could beat the sight of it from an island so far out in the ocean. Eve couldn’t help but stop and observe, for what seemed like the longest minute ever. Avi joined her, perhaps somewhat confused, but soon got into it as well. It really was a sight to witness. Yet, both of them saw something of their own up there, where the stars were floating in the the vast darkness.

“Forgot anything?” Eve made sure before climbing aboard. They rented a boat in Bowfort, quite a fast one - Avi was a skilled driver of all sorts, therefore piloting it wasn’t even much of a task to tackle.

“Nope. I guess you got all your stuff on you, always! Handy!” Alocer responded, hopping onto the boat and clumsily moving up to where the controls were.

Eve looked down at her phone. Numerous messages, yet none sent in distress. Everyone just assumed she was late. That was quite alright. She put it away, and leaned a bit to the side, to look at the bit of the Archipelago as Avi was speeding the boat away from it. Away from its tranquility and carefree, natural being. She heard Alocer sing a song - shifting between humming it and whistling, but also sometimes mumbling the lyrics. Unfortunately, she didn’t recognize it, but tried to hum along to some of the parts. The last thing she could see from far away were some creatures emerging from the seaside bushes, curious as to what was happening on the beach. Yet, they would find nothing there - as if nothing had happened anyway.

The voyage home was swift, yet quite safe - except for moments when Avi almost deliberately rocked the boat just some bit and looked back at where Eve sat, smiling at her, hoping for some sort of response. Trying to cheer her up.

And, surprisingly, it worked.


End file.
